[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This volume aims to offer a fresh perspective on the civil wars of the Late Roman Republic by examining their impact on the Mediterranean from Sulla’s first march on Rome in 88 BCE to the Battle of Alexandria between Octavian and Marc Antony in 30 BCE. Taking 88 BCE as the starting point is well supported by ancient sources. According to the Greek historian Appian, Sulla’s first march on Rome marked the beginning of the Roman civil wars (App. B. Civ. 1.60).
In their introduction, the editors, David García Domínguez, Juan García González and Federico Santangelo, assert that modern scholarship has so far neglected the impact of the civil wars on the Mediterranean, but has focused on their consequences for Rome and Italy instead (p. 1). The volume’s methodological approach is to apply Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s concept of ‘connected history’ to study the Roman civil wars as historical phenomena that transcend regional boundaries (p. 2).[1]
David García Domínguez, Juan García González and Federico Santangelo intend to focus on the role of local communities during the Roman civil wars (p. 8). They define the term ‘civil war’ as an ‘armed conflict between two factions that used to be part of the same political body’, stating that the key issue at stake ‘is control over a political space that used to be shared’ (p. 8).
The aim of this volume is to investigate the experiences of urban communities and local elites outside of Italy during the period from 88 to 30 BCE (Introduction, p. 11). By the 80s BCE, the Roman Republic already controlled a vast geographical region stretching from the province of Asia to the Iberian Peninsula, and from the Alps to North Africa (p.13). Therefore, the civil wars of the first century BCE cannot be discussed from a point of view ‘confined to the boundaries of the Italian peninsula’ (p. 18).
In his contribution to the volume, Dominik Maschek investigates the Roman civil wars from the perspective of material culture. Maschek argues that Roman expansion in the Mediterranean since the second century BCE was based on a ‘predatory system which relied on the connected materialities of the central and western Mediterranean’ (p. 33). From Maschek’s point of view, the ‘predatory consumption’ of foreign goods by the Romans cannot be understood without considering the impact of the civil wars of the Late Roman Republic on the eastern and western Mediterranean (p. 42).
Catalina Balmaceda analyses ‘the historiographical connection within Roman civil war accounts’ (p. 55). She discusses autobiographies written by victorious generals of the Roman civil wars, such as Sulla, Caesar and Octavian and examines how the historians Sallust, Velleius Paterculus and Appian depicted these wars. According to Balmaceda, historians of Roman civil wars aimed to explain the reasons for these conflicts, thereby providing a sense of purpose to these wars (p. 71). In contrast, the focus of autobiographies was more on justifying deeds (p. 57).
In her chapter “Financing Sulla’s Civil War”, Lucia Carbone presents a wide range of numismatic evidence concerning the financial impact of Sulla’s campaign against King Mithridates in the Greek East (87–84 BCE). She shows that, prior to the Peace of Dardanus in 85 BCE, most of the silver used to mint coins to pay Sulla’s legions came from mainland Greece. After Dardanus, however, Sulla turned to the riches of the province of Asia to pay his army (p. 112). Carbone argues that the financial resources which Sulla acquired in the Greek East formed the basis for his subsequent conquest of Italy and Rome during the civil war of 83/82 BCE.
David García Domínguez’ chapter “Pain and Gain: Violence against provincial cities in the age of the civil wars“, examines the violent measures taken against individuals or groups of residents from cities located in Roman provinces, or in regions of the Mediterranean under Roman control. He refers to the concept of civil war violence proposed by the political scientist Stathis Kalyvas, which recognises the involvement of locals in civil wars (pp. 122–125). García Domínguez presents cases studies analysing Fimbria’s sack of Ilium in 85 BCE, Metellus’ campaigns against the Lusitanians during the Sertorian War, Sertorius’ burning of the Iberian city of Lauro in 77 BCE, Caesar’s plundering of Gomphi in Thessaly in 48 BCE, Calenus’ capture of Patrae in 48 BCE and Brutus’ sack of the Lycian town of Patara in 42 BCE (pp. 126–132).
The following contribution “Rethinking the Bellum Sertorianum from a Romano-Italian Angle: A Matter of Enfranchisement?” by David Espinosa Espinosa, characterises the Sertorian War as a continuation of Sulla’s civil war of 83/82 BCE. Sertorius’s followers belonged to three main groups: Celtic-Iberian natives, Latin colonists without Roman citizenship who had settled in the Iberian Peninsula, and Romans who had been proscribed by Sulla and had escaped to Spain. According to the author, large groups of Italians and Latin colonists supported Sertorius because they had been excluded from the citizenship grants at the end of the Social War. Sertorius granted Roman citizenship to them and thus enlarged his faction (pp. 180–184).
The archaeologists Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, Jordi Principal, Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán and Gerard Ventós concentrate on the Sertorian War (“No-man’s Land: The North-Western Mediterranean and the Sertorian War”). They provide an overview of how Sertorius became an outlaw as a result of Sulla’s proscriptions, and they discuss archaeological material from the Pyrenees that they interpret as defensive structures built by the inhabitants of the north-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula to protect themselves against Sertorius and his army. According to the authors, the entire north-western Mediterranean formed a ‘connected region’, which Sertorius and his armies exploited for their military activities until – after 77 BCE – Pompey learned how to adapt to Sertorius’ strategies and gained the upper hand.
In “Civil War on Foreign Shores: M. Marius and the Roman Exiles in Asia Minor (75–72 BCE)”, Juan García González’ argues that the Sertorian War of the 70s BCE was a civil war on a Mediterranean scale, and, as such an example of ‘connected history’. According to González, Sulla’s civil war of the 80ies BCE did not reach such a Mediterranean scale (pp. 214 and 238). This statement seems questionable when considering Sulla’s plundering of the Panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi, Olympia and Epidaurus, his siege and sack of Athens, the destruction of Boeotian towns and his punitive measures against cities in the province of Asia. González’ discusses how Sertorius and many other proscribed Romans formed a senate on the Iberian Peninsula and ratified a treaty with King Mithridates of Pontus. This treaty agreed to support the king’s aim of winning over the cities of the Hellespont and Asia Minor, which had not yet recovered from Sulla’s punitive measures of 85 BCE. However, Sertorius’s and his followers’ plans to overthrow the Roman senate by forming a cross-Mediterranean coalition between the Iberian peninsula and the province of Asia failed due to the military supremacy of Pompey and Lucullus.
Laura Pfuntner’s contribution is devoted to provincial brokers in the Roman civil wars. The author aims to shed light on the role of provincial elites who were not members of the Roman Senate, thereby illustrating the concept of ‘connected histories’ (p. 245). Pfuntner discusses Pompey’s follower, Balbus the Elder, Caesar’s partisan, Balbus the Younger, and Publius Sittius from Naceria in Campania, who supported Caesar during the civil war in Africa. According to Pfuntner, the Balbi were able to maintain their position at the top of the local elite in their native city of Gades, but Publius Sittius was killed by the Numidian king Arabio (Appian BCiv 4.54) just a few months after Caesar’s death.
The volume concludes with a brief postscript by Giusto Traina, a list of contributors, and two indices.
Despite its title, ‘Connected histories of the Roman Civil Wars (88–30 BCE)’, many of the chapters focus on the impact of Sulla’s campaign against king Mithridates in the Greek East and the aftermath of Sulla’s civil war of 83/2 BCE. There is no chapter devoted specifically to the civil wars that followed Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE.
Several recent publications on Sulla are not mentioned in the introduction or many of the chapters.[2]
A Mediterranean perspective on the Roman civil wars is both necessary and welcome. This volume will certainly stimulate new interest in the topic.
Authors and Titles
Introduction: Recentring the Late Republican Civil Wars (David García Domínguez, Juan García González and Federico Santangelo)
Connected Materialities, Predatory Consumption, and the End of the Roman Republic (Dominik Maschek)
Connected Narratives of Roman Civil Wars (Catalina Balmaceda)
Financing Sulla’s Wars (Lucia F. Carbone)
Pain and Gain. Violence Against Provincial Cities in the Age of the Civil Wars (David García Domínguez)
Rethinking the Bellum Sertorianum from a Romano-Italian Angle: A Matter of Enfranchisement? (David Espinosa Espinosa)
No-man’s Land: The North-Western Mediterranean and the Sertorian War (Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, Jordi Principal, Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán and Gerard Ventós)
Civil War on Foreign Shores: M. Marius and the Roman Exiles in Asia Minor (75–72 BCE) (Juan García González)
Provincial Brokers in Roman Civil Wars (Laura Pfuntner)
Post-Scriptum (Giusto Traina)
Notes
[1] Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Connected histories. Notes toward a reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia‘, in: Modern Asia Studies 31, pp. 725–762; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Connected Histories. Essays and Arguments, New York 2022.
[2] The editors do not cite Alison Rosenblitt’s important monograph Rome after Sulla (2019), which explores the societal trauma of Sulla’s civil war and its repercussions until 77 BCE and which also addresses the significance of Sertorius’ resistance against Rome in the Iberian Peninsula during this period. Other scholarship not cited: Dariusz Słapek & Ireneusz Łuć (eds.), Lucius Cornelius Sulla. History and Tradition, Lublin 2013; Alexandra Eckert: Lucius Cornelius Sulla in der antiken Erinnerung, Berlin/Boston 2016 (pp. 86–138 on Sulla in the Greek East); Pierre Assenmaker, “Poids symbolique et la destruction et enjeux idéologiques de ses récits: Réflexion sur les sacs d’Athènes et d’Ilion durant la première guerre mithridatique,” in Jan Driessen (ed.), Destruction. Archaeological, Philological and Historical Perspectives, Louvain 2013), pp. 391–414; Borja Antela-Bernández/Ignacio Arrayás Morales (eds.): Sullanum Tempus. Historical Studies on the Age of L. Cornelius Sulla, Madrid 2025. Marianne Coudry and François Kirbihler: La lex Cornelia, une lex provinciae de Sylla pour l’Asie, in: N. Arradon and F. Kirbihler (eds) , Administrer les provinces de la République romaine, Rennes, 2010, pp. 133-169; François Kirbihler, Des Grecs et des Italiens à éphèse. Histoire d’une intégration croisée (133 a.C.- 48 p.C.), Bordeaux 2016; Christel Müller, “L’empreinte de Sylla: Les conséquences de la première guerre mithridatique sur les territoires et paysages béotiens,” in: Thierry Lucas, Christel Müller, and Anne-Charlotte Oddon-Panissié (eds.): La Béotie de l’archaisme à l’époque romaine: Frontières, territoires, paysages, (Paris 2019), pp. 155–177.