Читаем The Storm Before the Storm полностью

Marius defeats Teutones and Ambrones at Battle of Aquae Sextiae

Cimbri successfully invade Italy 101 Fifth consulship of Marius

Marius defeats Cimbri at Battle of Raudian Plain

Aquillius defeats slave army in Sicily

Supporters of Saturninus murder Nonius 100 Sixth consulship of Marius

Second tribunate of Saturninus

Metellus exiled

Supporters of Saturninus murder Memmius

Senate issues second senatus consultum ultimum

Death of Saturninus and Glaucia

Birth of Julius Caesar 98 Marius meets King Mithridates VI of Pontus

Metellus recalled from exile

Sulla elected praetor 95 Sulla installs King Ariobarzanes on throne of Cappadocia

Mithridates and King Tigranes of Armenia forge alliance

Birth of Cato the Younger 94 Scaevola and Rutilius reform administration of Asia

Sulla meets Parthian ambassador 92 Trial and banishment of Rutilius 91 Tribunate of Marcus Drusus the Youngerv

Mithridates invades Bithynia, Tigranes invades Cappadocia

Drusus proposes Italian citizenship

Drusus murdered

Beginning of Social War 90 Rebel Italians establish capital at Corfinium

Varian Commission prosecutes those accused of inciting Italians

Gaius Marius takes command of legions in northern Italy

Aquillius escorts Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes back to their kingdoms

Lex Julia extends citizenship to Italians not under arms 89 Lex Plautia Papiria extends citizenship to all Italians

Nicomedes of Bithynia invades Pontus

Mithridates invades Cappadocia

Pompey Strabo captures Asculum

Sulla wages successful campaign in southern Italy

Sulla and Pompeius elected consuls 88 Death of Poppaedius Silo

End of Social War

Sulpicius proposes equal suffrage for the Italians

Sulpicius gives eastern command to Marius

Sulla’s march on Rome

Marius flees to Africa

Mithridates invades Asia

Mithridates orders massacre of Italians 87 First consulship of Cinna

Sulla departs for east and besieges Athens

Cinna pushed out of Rome after proposing equal suffrage for the Italians

Cinnan army surrounds Rome

Death of Pompey Strabo

Cinnan army enters Rome

Marian reign of terror 86 Seventh consulship of Marius

Second consulship of Cinna

Death of Gaius Marius

Sulla sacks Athens

Sulla defeats Pontic army at Chaeronea

Flaccus and Asiaticus lead legions east

Sulla defeats Pontic army at Orchomenus 85 Third consulship of Cinna

Fimbria kills Flaccus

Lucullus lets Mithridates escape

Sulla and Mithridates conclude peace

Sulla forces Fimbria to commit suicide 84 Fourth consulship of Cinna

Cinna killed by mutinous soldiers

Sulla imposes settlement on Asia

Senate and Sulla negotiate his return 83 Sulla returns to Italy

Metellus Pius, Pompey, and Crassus join Sulla

Beginning of Civil War 82 Beginning of siege of Praeneste

Sulla addresses the Romans

Sulla wins Battle of Colline Gate

End of Civil War

Sulla appointed dictator 81 Sullan proscriptions

Sulla reforms the Republican constitution 80 Sulla resigns dictatorship and becomes consul 79 Sulla retires 78 Death of Sulla

AUTHOR’S NOTE

NO PERIOD IN history has been more thoroughly studied than the fall of the Roman Republic. The names Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Octavian, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra are among the most well known names not just in Roman history, but in human history. Each year we are treated to a new book, movie, or TV show depicting the lives of this vaunted last generation of the Roman Republic. There are good reasons for their continued predominance: it is a period alive with fascinating personalities and earth-shattering events. It is especially riveting for those of us in the modern world who, suspecting the fragility of our own republican institutions, look to the rise of the Caesars as a cautionary tale. Ben Franklin’s famous remark that the Constitutional Convention had produced “a Republic… if you can keep it” rings all these generations later as a warning bell.

Surprisingly, there has been much less written about how the Roman Republic came to the brink of disaster in the first place—a question that is perhaps more relevant today than ever. A raging fire naturally commands attention, but to prevent future fires, one must ask how the fire started. No revolution springs out of thin air, and the political system Julius Caesar destroyed through sheer force of ambition certainly wasn’t healthy to begin with. Much of the fuel that ignited in the 40s and 30s BC had been poured a century earlier. The critical generation that preceded that of Caesar, Cicero, and Antony—that of the revolutionary Gracchi brothers, the stubbornly ambitious Marius, and the infamously brash Sulla—is neglected. We have long been denied a story that is as equally thrilling, chaotic, frightening, hilarious, and riveting as that of the final generation of the Republic. This book tells that story.