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triumph, which no doubt helped him to win election to the consulship for 99 BC. T wo years later he was censor, one of the two magistrates who oversaw the census of Roman citizens completed every five years. Only one in five consuls could hope to reach the censorship and it was an office of tremendous prestige.
THE ORATOR AND THE DICTATOR
    Marcus Antonius was one of the leading senators of his day, but prominence would prove to be a dangerous thing in the first century BC. In 91 BC a politician pressing for the extension of Roman citizenship to the allies of Italy was assassinated. Many of the Italian communities chose to rebel and the result was the Social War – the name comes from the Latin
socii,
meaning ‘allies’ – which was fought at high cost in lives and with great savagery. Roman victory had as much to do with their willingness to grant citizenship to all those who remained loyal, and many more who capitulated quickly, as it did with military skill. It was a conflict that accustomed many soldiers to fighting against enemies very much like themselves.
    By 88 BC the rebellion was substantially over and the consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla was given command in the war against King Mithridates VI of Pontus. The latter was exploiting the crumbling of the Seleucid Empire and Roman preoccupation to expand from his heartland on the southern coast of the Black Sea. A campaign in the Hellenistic east offered a Roman general all the glory and plunder he could desire, and Sulla left Rome to recruit and train his army. In his absence a radical politician campaigned to have the command transferred to Marius, the great military hero of the last generation, but now in his late sixties. 5
    Consul for the first time in 107, Marius had won a victory in Numidia, but was then voted into an unprecedented succession of consulships every year from 104 to 101 BC. This violated precedent and law, which stipulated that ten years should elapse between each consulship. At the time, the Italian Peninsula was menaced by migrating northern tribes who had already slaughtered every army sent against them and there was clearly a strong feeling that the crisis required an extraordinary solution. Marius dealt with the barbarians, smashing them in a final battle in 101 BC. He celebrated a triumph and was rewarded by being voted a sixth consulship by a grateful Rome.
    The Roman Empire in the first century BC
    It was a spectacular career, especially since Marius was the first of his family to embark on a public career and enter the Senate. He was what the Romans called a ‘new man’
(novus homo),
who had had to make a name for himself rather than rely on the fame of his family. Marius revelled in popular acclaim and seems to have struggled to cope when this began to fade. He played a relatively modest part in the Social War and may well have suffered from poor health. Yet in spite of his advanced age he decided that he wanted the command against Mithridates and the Popular Assembly was willing to pass a law transferring it to him. In every respect this was a break with tradition, even if it was not actually illegal. Yet in the past Marius had broken other traditions and gone on to win. 6
    This time it was different. Sulla was a patrician, but came from a family that had long since fallen away from the centre of public life. He had come to politics at a late age, determined to rise to the top and had secured the plum command against Mithridates. He refused to let this be taken from him, and his soldiers were equally unwilling to lose the chance of the rich plunder likely in an eastern war. The senior officers were less keen and only one man of senatorial rank accompanied Sulla as he led his legions to Rome. Marius and his opponents had no organised force to meet them and could not hope to defend the city successfully. Many were killed, although Marius escaped. Sulla stayed only for a short time before taking his troops off to fight